Positive Auditory Stimuli and Its Effects on PTSD: A Case Study on Police Officers

This is a case study reporting the outcome of a positive auditory stimuli intervention on 3 police officers who presented for an auditory brain retraining program at Blissiree in Perth, Australia, in 2024. Participants, prior to the first intervention, answered 5 self-administered questionnaires containing a total of 82 questions to assess their state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The questionnaires used included the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (10 questions); the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (16 questions); the Aggression Questionnaire (29 questions); the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (9 questions); the International Trauma Questionnaire (18 questions); and 44 stress indicators. Subjects were then exposed to 14 treatment sessions of the Positive Auditory Stimuli Method, which entailed approximately 25-minute masked subliminal auditory priming programs that the facilitator read from scripts. The scripts contain many dozens of positive statements aimed at decreasing the participants’ PTSD symptoms. Participants completed the same questionnaires at the end of their 14th treatment sessions. Statistical analyses of pre- and post-intervention questionnaire responses were performed, and the results revealed a statistically significant difference in the stress reports of the subjects after the Positive Auditory Stimuli Method, as demonstrated in some of the surveys employed. However, this is a case study with a small heterogeneous sample (n = 3, only police officers). The Positive Auditory Stimuli Method needs to be further investigated with larger sample sizes and subjects representing the general population.